NO DISRESPECT to Wendell Sailor, but it took a 33-year-old reformed drugs offender making his return in park football to highlight the value of star power.

While the turnout at Shellharbour's Ron Costello Oval for Sailor's comeback was only about half the 6881 crowd at ANZ Stadium watching the Dragons humble a Storm outfit missing nine Origin stars, it's a no-brainer to guess which of the two matches returned a profit.

Yet two of the NRL's biggest stars, Mark Gasnier and Sonny Bill Williams, are set to spark an exodus of players to Europe and the game is doing little to dissuade them from going.

Both are on playing contracts of about $400,000 a year and they also have third-party agreements, but have become increasingly frustrated by restrictions on their earning capacity in the NRL.

Adding to their frustration is knowing what other athletes are paid here and overseas, and realising how much they could earn by playing elsewhere - even if it means switching codes.

Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds and Brett Lee are among a group of players with Cricket Australia contracts worth $1 million or more who earn up to three times that amount from other sources, including the newly formed Indian Premier League.

Wallabies star Matt Giteau's $1.5 million annual package makes him the highest-paid footballer in the country.

Just behind Giteau is Chris Judd, who was snared by Carlton this season for $1.2 million annually, while Brisbane Lions forward Jonathan Brown is set to earn the same amount when he finalises a new deal with that club.

Of course, Wayne Carey was receiving $1 million per year from North Melbourne until he was sacked in 2002, while Anthony Koutoufides, Nathan Buckley and James Hird were all on the same amount or close to it before retiring last season.

But the NRL's first million-dollar man is nowhere in sight, with Brisbane's Darren Lockyer, North Queensland's Johnathan Thurston and Manly's Matt Orford believed to be the highest paid, on contracts worth about $500,000 per year.

In contrast to those in other sports, league's top players have seen their pay packets shrink over the past 13 years. The likes of Ricky Stuart, Laurie Daley, Bradley Clyde, Andrew Ettingshausen, Allan Langer and Glenn Lazarus were awarded $600,000 per year contracts, plus $100,000 sign-on fees, to defect to News Ltd's Super League in 1995. Others, such as Brad Fittler and Paul Harragon, received similar amounts for staying loyal to the ARL.

When he quit St George Illawarra in 2000 to fulfil his dream of becoming a world boxing champion, Anthony Mundine was on a $600,000-a-year contract negotiated in 1997, but in the decade since no one has signed a more lucrative deal.

Little wonder, then, that the likes of Gasnier and Williams are seriously considering switching to rugby union in France, where they can double their income and enjoy an attractive lifestyle.

Former Test halfback Craig Gower, playing for Bayonne in southern France, might be out of sight and therefore out of mind to many people in the NRL, but he still keeps in contact with some of the players and they've all heard how he can play golf in Morocco, ski in Andorra and shop in Spain.

Then there's the $600,000 pay packet Gower reportedly commands and that touching the ball twice at outside-centre isn't as relevant as if he was still playing for Penrith.

For Gasnier, who has spent the past two off-seasons travelling in Africa and the Middle East and whose fiancee is French, has other strong incentives to leave. These are the collapses of three separate third-party sponsorship deals worth $50,000 each per season that were negotiated when he turned down an offer from the ARU to re-sign for five years with the Dragons in 2006. When Sailor switched to rugby in 2002, a large component of his $700,000 deal was in third-party agreements with ARU sponsors, all underwritten. But under the NRL's strict salary cap rules, clubs cannot guarantee such deals as part of their negotiations with players.

After rejecting a number of big-money offers, one equivalent to $900,000 per year to stay with the Bulldogs, Williams is also becoming frustrated by the limits on his income in the NRL for the term of the new five-year deal he began this season.

Should he and Gasnier go, it would be an even greater blow to the NRL than when Mat Rogers and Lote Tuqiri followed Sailor to rugby in 2002. At the time, some NRL officials shrugged off the losses by saying another superstar winger would soon emerge to replace them.

It's taken more than five years but he will be playing at Shellharbour tonight in a Jim Beam Cup match against the WA Reds. Welcome back, Wendell.